Chapter 13 - The Admiral's Shadow

"Vale wouldn't," Ben said.

"People said that about my father," I answered.

Torres agreed we had to verify the vehicle assignment before accusing anyone. She set up a meeting with the admiral in a federal building, under cameras neither side controlled.

Vale arrived alone. He looked tired enough to have aged a decade since the gala.

"The sedan belonged to Commander Ellis Grant," he said. "My former chief of staff. His badge was revoked three weeks ago."

"Why?" Torres asked.

"He was accessing sealed Meridian records without authorization. I believed he was looking for a leak. Now I think he was the leak."

Grant had once been Vale's most trusted aide. He knew the investigation, the convoy report, and every security blind spot around the admiral. It explained why Kessler kept getting one step ahead.

"You should have told us," I said.

"I should have," Vale replied. No excuse. Just ownership.

That made me trust him slightly more, though not enough to stop asking questions.

Ben fed the recovered numbers into an isolated laptop. After several failed attempts, a folder opened. Audio files. Cargo invoices. A map showing the convoy route, with a red line tracing the ambush point.

Then a voice spoke through the speakers.

Kessler's voice: "Sterling signed the release. The captain thinks he's moving supplies. He doesn't know we moved the people."

A second voice answered, steady and familiar.

"Then keep it that way."

Vale's face tightened. "Grant."

The recording continued. Grant discussed transferring the civilians to buyers, disguising the movement as an aid shipment, and eliminating the team escorting them if it became necessary.

I felt the walls tip around me. Twelve people. Not statistics. Amina liked strawberry candy. One man played the harmonica. A little boy asked whether the stars in America looked the same.

Torres paused the audio. "This is enough to open a major case."

At that moment, every screen in the conference room went black. A message appeared in white letters:

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